


palo santo

by nuest95s



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Open Relationship, Songfic, but like no smut ABSOLUTELY no smut, demon!minhyun, drunk sex but consensual, human!seongwu, incubus minhyun, lapslock, please bear w me it's less weird than it sounds, read author's note!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 17:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuest95s/pseuds/nuest95s
Summary: roses bloom and roses burn—the ashes are too sweet to be of any use.





	palo santo

**Author's Note:**

> omg this is so bad but we're just gna go w it ig... this is 100% a songfic based off palo santo by years & years but 100 years by florence + the machine is also a really good song for it... a couple things i want to mention
> 
> \- thanks to kaya and emily and ladladla for helping me not lose it while writing this
> 
> \- implied ~cheating~ but not exactly cheating when (even tho its referenced in the fic i am EMPHASIZING it here) they have the opposite of an exclusive relationship for like. HEALTH REASONS. 
> 
> \- plot points taken exclusively from the wikipedia [definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus) of an incubus! read that and listen to the song and u pretty much know what's coming... 
> 
> \- and here's a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/varsh-bear/playlist/0Z6Ks17UMQGbUsOO1ENUsj?si=EQS0LPt4R_-nQlk2IvRfzw)!

             _i._

they meet through a mutual friend, an acquaintance whose name’s long left seongwoo’s memory. he doesn’t remember the specifics, never does when it comes to minhyun. neon lights and shadows that smell like cigarette smoke; he’s unsure whether minhyun attracts darkness or whether it attracts him. somewhere in the middle, he thrives.

seongwoo’s drunk when he sees him, and he wonders why he hadn’t before. he doesn’t shine, bright and corrosive, but his presence is irrevocable. he smiles, halfway to a black hole, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

he’s harder to bear up close, dark eyes that glitter in the light. he puts a hand on seongwoo’s shoulder, stills him, and it burns. “why are you shaking?”

he’s not sure. there’s little he’s capable of knowing for certain when he looks at him. he smiles, and it comes out thin. he means to—he doesn’t know what he means to say. but he says the truth, because he always does in front of minhyun. maybe, if he lied, he’d be happier. “you.”

he grins, and it’s feral in a way that matters. “that’s sweet of you.”

the light turns him monstrous, a creature of angles, and he almost reaches out a hand to cut himself. this isn’t why he’s here, he knows, but he can’t look away. there’s blood on his palms, fingernails cutting in deep, and it feels like the future is on the tip of his tongue.

someone opens the window, but seongwoo still feels too warm, flash paper skin seconds from catching fire. minhyun looks over his shoulder, at the moon, at the stars. his expression shifts, volatile, and for half a second, seongwoo is afraid.

fear, and yet the furthest thing from it. if he was afraid, he would’ve run away. if he was afraid, he wouldn’t have come back.

fear and love are close, at times, but never the same. never with him.

seongwoo doesn’t realize he’s speaking to him until his hand’s on his jaw, turning his face up. he’s trembling again, but it’s different, and he doesn’t know why. being with minhyun is like that; truths that elude him and lies that throb at him, ceaseless.

they go home together, that night. it’s a new moon, and minhyun is restless, close to falling apart. he wakes up, and minhyun is looking at him. daylight turns him human, and he cocks his head at him.

“minhyun,” he says, a euphemism. “my name’s minhyun.”

seongwoo blinks at him. “seongwoo.”

“seongwoo,” he echoes. it sounds better in his mouth, warmth filling in the gaps left by disuse. “you’re beautiful.”

but beauty is ephemeral, a rose meant only for the flames. charred petals are of no use to gods. when he comes out of the bathroom, he’s gone.  

 

 _ii._              

 

the next time, they are sober. seongwoo sees him seconds before he does, and he shifts against the wall of the pharmacy to take him in. the fluorescent lights wash him in shades of violet, and he doesn’t smile.

minhyun waves, amiable but predatory. “seongwoo.”

he says his name like it matters, and he walks over, a thin plastic bag forgotten on his wrist. “what?”

he grins, dazzling, and brings his cigarette back to his lips. he drops it to his side and beckons seongwoo to come closer. he does, and minhyun brings their mouths together. he pulls away and leans against the wall beside him, lungs halfway up his throat. his chest burns. he looks at minhyun, and the fire grows.

he leans forward, until their lips are close enough to touch again. his eyes are dark, bottomless, but this close, he feels alive. “did you like it?”

seongwoo likes everything minhyun does. he pushes him away, and his hand is cold from the warmth. “you shouldn’t smoke, it’s bad for you.”

minhyun laughs. it makes him look younger. “cigarettes aren’t going to kill me.”

he says it with a kind of dark finality, a truth that sticks in his throat. his head throbs. “i liked it. why are you here?”

“dropped by to say hi.” he leans forward, cups seongwoo’s face with one hand. his thumb is flat against his cheek, caustic. his mouth curves in a smile. “you’re shaking.”

he is. “because of you.”

“you don’t have to be afraid of me,” he says, pouting.

“i’m not,” he whispers, and minhyun kisses him. he tastes of licorice and smoke, and his chest hurts. minhyun kisses like he means to consume; he kisses like he means to take him apart. a darkness that blinds, a star on the brink of collapsing.

he pushes him against the wall of the pharmacy, brick against the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and he says something unintelligible against his lips. seongwoo pieces the letters together a hundred times, takes them apart and rearranges sentences like they’re prophetic. and maybe they are, but prophecy is useless in the hands of nonbelievers.

 _thank you,_ he says.

the next morning, seongwoo wakes up alone.

 

 _iii._  

 

minhyun is a human liminal space. around him, everything bends, and everything burns.

he kisses him against the side of a car, and the alarm blares, jarring. his voice is warm against his ear, an apology. “hi.”

seongwoo means to—he’s not sure. yell at him, or cry, or run away or kiss him back. valium is heavy in his back pocket, and it stings. he pulls away. “why do you always leave?”

his face shifts, and he looks up. seongwoo follows his gaze; it’s a full moon. he looks back down at minhyun and he presses his lips to his again. this time, he pulls away first. the darkness makes him appear softer on the edges, angles worn into nothing. “do you really want to know?”

“yes,” he says, but it’s a lie, and it trips off his lips. “tell me.”

minhyun has never been easily readable. his words give away nothing, and the curves of his body tell a story that makes no sense, dissonance held in a heart. he tilts his head, hair falling into his face. “take me home, and i’ll tell you.”

he does. that night, minhyun lights his bed on fire, and seongwoo watches.

in the morning, he is still there. seongwoo’s chest burns, gasoline dripping down the back of his throat. he pushes himself up with one arm.

seongwoo says, “you’re awake.”

he smiles, and he’s never seen something sadder. “i never slept.”

 

             _iv._

 

he finds him a hundred times, a hundred apologies on the tip of his tongue. a hundred promises fill his mouth, and when seongwoo kisses him, it tastes bitter, burnt sugar and cheap liquor. the moon changes, and he changes with it, but he always burns him, leaves seongwoo’s fingers red and blistering from the heat.

every night, he loves him, and every morning, he leaves.

           

             _v._

 

“do you ever stay?” he asks one day. minhyun is washing his hands with an old crinkled water bottle, and his skin is stained rose gold. he wrings them out slowly, and looks over at him. his actions are always precise when the moon’s gibbous.

“what do you mean?” he says, nails dragged across a wall.

“stay,” seongwoo repeats, and it burns. “do you ever stay with anyone?”

he doesn’t look at him when he speaks. the asphalt shines from the water, and he toes a puddle, distorting his reflection. “i’ve never stayed. it’s dangerous, for us and them. to stay.”

“what do you mean?” seongwoo asks. he looks up at him suddenly, and his eyes are scrutinizing. in another world, it would feel malicious. minhyun is barbed to everyone but him, scar tissue covering his heart.

he smiles, the way he does before he takes seongwoo apart. “why are you so curious tonight? are you afraid?”

minhyun asks him that every time. whispers it in his ear and stills himself against the thrum of seongwoo’s heart until he answers; shouts it in lieu of a greeting; begs him to answer seconds before he falls asleep, because they both know he won’t be there to ask in the morning.

and every time, he says the same thing. “no.”

“then why?” minhyun drops the water bottle, and it bounces on the ground, rolling to a stop at the curb. they watch it move, and then look at each other.

“i just wanted to know,” he says, truthfully. greed doesn’t look good on humans; it eats them up from the inside, carves them into something unrecognizable and unknown. and seongwoo’s already sinned enough for a lifetime, sinned enough for multiple. but he doesn’t fear hell, and if he ever had, he can’t remember it now.

minhyun stares at him, considering. he moves quickly, and when he brings a hand up to his face, seongwoo’s heart stutters in his chest. his eyes are dark, torn, and he worries his lip. his voice is quiet, rasping; iron against stone. “do you want this?”

“why do you always ask?” seongwoo asks in return, and he takes a step back. some thin, wavering flame in him aches for him to come closer again.

when minhyun looks over at him, he knows. it’s consuming, suffocating in a way that unravels him. his lungs constrict, and minhyun is still staring, mournful. deicide is beautiful until you see it up close, and seongwoo’s hands have never felt so much like ash.

he bridges the distance between them again. he kisses him until the sun comes up, and then he leaves, and seongwoo looks after him but he does not call for him to come back.

 

             _vi._

 

Q: how do you kill a demon?

A: the same way you kill a god—love them until they crumble at your feet.

 

             _vii._

 

seongwoo doesn’t realize until it’s too late.

stars collapse, and destroy; black holes consume; fire burns. the ocean beats against stone, ceaseless and harsh, and tears infinities apart. minhyun is soft eyed and cold hearted and even when he kisses seongwoo, his mouth tastes like iron.

humanity is ephemeral, a brief blip in the vastness of time. blink and you miss it; blink, and all you’re left with is scars and the suggestion of a shadow in the distance, growing smaller with every passing second. seongwoo is like that, but more rapidly deteriorating, fault lines on the surface of his heart.

madness is an inexplicable thing, vines wrapping around your thoughts and taking them apart without your permission. it comes and goes, leaves seongwoo drained in the middle of the night.

roses bloom and roses burn—the ashes are too sweet to be of any use.

minhyun doesn’t notice until he tells him, because minhyun is afraid. he watches seongwoo through the gaps in his fingers, trembling. on new moons, he leaves tears in their bed and burns through the cotton and doesn’t stop shaking until seongwoo shows him that his heart is still beating.

he doesn’t understand hearts, and his flame flickers every now and then. he doesn’t know seongwoo’s heartbeat is racing, doesn’t know it grows faster every time he stays for more than a night. seongwoo doesn’t tell him at first, because he’s afraid too.

minhyun takes him to the ocean. it’s far, and he appears the moment the sun goes down, an unfamiliar car with him and paisley patterned keys.

they don’t speak until the air smells of salt and sea spray, but minhyun’s hand is heavy on his. knowledge carves him from the inside out, and his touch burns all that’s left.

when he slows to a stop, the moon is high in the sky, barely there but present all the same. minhyun’s movements are slow, a knife drawn through amber. he closes the door behind him, and waits for seongwoo. he watches him through the glass, distorted, and counts the beat of his heart. his chest aches from the stress; he swallows fire like gasoline like liquor and gets out of the car.

they leave their shoes where the sand meets asphalt, and the ground is cold. he presses himself against minhyun, a pavlovian response, and bites back a small laugh at the sensation.

he tells him by the ocean. seawater threads through their feet, and leaves in the next breath. seongwoo’s chest is tight; he’s seconds from going up in flames, and it’s too late for the water to be any kind of salvation. he crouches down nonetheless, runs his fingers through the waves and lets it wash the blood away.

“did you already know?” he asks when he straightens back up. minhyun isn’t looking at him; he never does at times like this. seongwoo is a fixed point, instants of creation and destruction pressed so close together that, to minhyun, it must be painful to watch. a trainwreck, doomed from the moment of conception.

“no,” he says. seongwoo reaches out a hand and brushes it against his jaw. he’s shaking. “i’m sorry.”

he shrugs, takes a deep breath and finds it unsatisfying. minhyun is a black hole, but infectious, virulent. there’s an absence in seongwoo’s chest, curled up between his heart and his ribs and it consumes, the way minhyun loves. it takes and takes and takes and seongwoo is just one man, one heart laid bare and left to burn. “i asked you to tell me, that night.”

minhyun doesn’t say anything. in the moonlight, he looks beautiful but unattainable, farther away than ever. there’s always been a chasm between them, but he’s never felt it like he does now.

he closes his eyes. when he opens them, they’re burning. “how long do you have?”

“is it important?” he asks, fingers dripping at his side.

he grits his teeth. “seongwoo—”

“i’ll tell you when i know,” he says in lieu of an answer, and minhyun looks away. he reaches out, cups his face and kisses him once. he still tastes like licorice; like iron, and smoke, and salt. minhyun stares at him, and he’s afraid.

love is stronger than fear, just barely. fear leaves nothing behind, and love leaves behind ghosts, sickly sweet unfulfilled promises and memories that taste like ash.

the next morning, he leaves.

 

             _viii._

 

seongwoo sleeps with ghosts these days, a warmth beside him that’s more faded every second that passes. it doesn’t help, not like minhyun said it would. the first night, his head aches. the next, his skin burns. every night since then has been a countdown; picking petals off and watching them fall to dust.

minhyun comes back on a full moon. he knocks on seongwoo’s door and nearly falls into his house, one hand loosely grasping the counter. he’s pale, breaths coming fast, and even feet away, seongwoo can feel his warmth. it’s intoxicating and lethal and he keeps himself still with sheer willpower alone.

“seongwoo,” he whispers, a prayer to a god that’s long since forsaken them both. he says his name again, and again, and again, until it builds, a promise and an apology in the same breath. he falls to his knees, a plea. and gods aren’t meant to fall; demons aren’t meant to love, but here he is, a hundred different words for catastrophe on the tip of his tongue and every time, seconds before he speaks, they’re substituted by his name. it sounds holy coming from his mouth, a trembling kind of heresy.

“what?” he asks, and he’s shaking too.

“i’m—” he cuts off and swallows hard. his adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and the dim light of the living room turns him ghostly. “are you okay?”

seongwoo has never been able to lie to minhyun, but tonight, it comes easy. “yeah.”

he nods once, twice, to himself more than anything. then he says, “are you afraid of me?”

“no,” he says reflexively. it hurts his throat.

“even now?” he’s afraid.

“even now.”

minhyun sucks in a breath, leans his forehead against the side of the counter. he’s thinner than he was when seongwoo last saw him, and sweat’s beading at his temples.

demons die the same way empires fall, the same way hearts snap. blink, and you miss it.

seongwoo doesn’t dare close his eyes.

he looks over at him, gaze dark and unrecognizable. he’s coming apart at the seams, seongwoo can tell. knives are worth nothing when pointed inward; thorns can take apart roses just as easily as anything else.

“can i kiss you?” he asks. he says it the same way one would say ‘i love you’, or ‘goodbye’. seongwoo doesn’t dwell, because he’s afraid to.

“yes,” he says, and he does. he tastes like he always does, but different. someone else’s cologne; carnations in place of roses. he’s meant to be sick to his stomach, but he’s not. because he was never meant to stay for more than one night, and he stayed for a small forever, a brief infinity that they held together in shaking hands until it fell apart.

it’s like every other time, except it’s not. minhyun loves him and consumes him, because these are synonymous to him, two thoughts that throb until they tear him apart. an addiction with no treatment; a madness that’s wasting them away.

permanence is a sickness, he thinks when minhyun kisses him again. his eyes are bright and lurid, and they scrape across seongwoo without recognition. his movements are shaky, like they always are on new moons; his fingers stutter on the way to his face, and he brushes a piece of hair away from his temple before collapsing onto the mattress beside him.

he’s breathing heavy, and this close, seongwoo’s afraid of going up in flames. for some reason, the thought doesn’t frighten him. _together,_ he thinks, and it’s hopeless and foolish, because they are not the same, not reciprocals, and were never meant to fit into each other. minhyun is the bite of acid on a garden, and seongwoo is burning, burning, burning until fire fades out into apathy. he wasn’t supposed to stay, but he did. seongwoo’s not sure what would’ve hurt more.

“i love you,” he says, into the crook of his neck like he’s too afraid to tell him face to face. he’s already burning up, already burning away, eyes fervid. it’s not the sort of thing that needs to be said at this point, but seongwoo thinks that’s why he said it—to leave something behind. ghosts are worth nothing if there’s no one there to hold them, and seongwoo only has a couple weeks but they’re enough to do the job.

he kisses him, and he tastes like what he figures hell would taste like; holy water burning you from the inside out.

the next morning, seongwoo wakes up, and he is alone. deicide, except there is no one to mourn a demon but those who they hurt. he lights a rose on fire and calls it enough.

 

 _ix._  

 

seongwoo drives to the sea, and waits till it’s midnight. he walks with the waves inches from his feet; close, but not close enough to unravel him. the air smells of seaspray and him; salt and licorice and smoke, a fire seconds after it goes out. it’s a new moon, and the night is alive with the ghost of him.

at midnight, seongwoo steps into the water and burns. 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry <3
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hwanguIt) and here's my [cc](https://curiouscat.me/chuuist)
> 
> leave a kudos/comment if ur feeling up to it :D also this was extremely extremely vague for stylistic reasons so if ur like confused as shit leave a comment/cc and i'll try to clear shit up? sry :(


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